You’ve been comparing React and Vue.js 3 performance metrics and something looks off – maybe your benchmarks show unexpected results, or your app is performing differently than expected. This comparison confusion happens to developers all the time, especially with the constant framework updates in 2025.
Step-by-Step Fixes
Step 1: Clear Your Testing Environment
First, close all browser tabs except your testing tab. Chrome DevTools, Firefox Developer Edition, or Safari’s Web Inspector should be your only focus. Kill any background processes eating CPU – Spotify, Slack, Discord, whatever’s running. Open Task Manager (Windows) or Activity Monitor (Mac) and make sure your CPU usage is below 20% before testing.
Step 2: Run Fresh Benchmarks with Lighthouse
Open Chrome DevTools and navigate to the Lighthouse tab. Run a performance audit on both your React and Vue.js 3 applications separately. Make sure you’re testing in Incognito mode to avoid extensions messing with results. Click “Generate report” and save both reports for comparison. The key metrics you want are First Contentful Paint (FCP), Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), and Total Blocking Time (TBT).
Step 3: Check Your Build Configurations
Your webpack or Vite configs might be wildly different between projects. For React, ensure you’re using production builds with:
“`javascript
npm run build
// or
yarn build
“`
For Vue.js 3, double-check your vite.config.js has optimization enabled:
“`javascript
export default {
build: {
minify: ‘terser’,
terserOptions: {
compress: {
drop_console: true,
drop_debugger: true
}
}
}
}
“`
Step 4: Verify Component Complexity Matches
Make sure you’re comparing apples to apples. A React component with 50 useState hooks isn’t comparable to a Vue component with 5 ref() declarations. Count your state management pieces, effects/watchers, and computed properties. They should be roughly equivalent for fair comparison.
Step 5: Test on Multiple Devices
Your MacBook Pro M2 will show different results than a 2019 Windows laptop. Use Chrome’s device emulation to test on simulated slower devices. Click the device toolbar icon in DevTools and select “Mobile – Low-end” or “Desktop – Throttled” to see how both frameworks perform under stress.
Step 6: Use Professional Benchmarking Tools
If basic testing isn’t giving clear answers, grab specialized tools. The js-framework-benchmark repository on GitHub provides standardized tests. Clone it, run both frameworks through the same operations (creating 1000 rows, updating every 10th row, removing rows), and compare the millisecond results.
Likely Causes
Cause #1: Different Rendering Strategies Affecting Your Specific Use Case
React’s virtual DOM and Vue’s reactive system work fundamentally differently. React re-renders entire component trees by default, while Vue.js 3’s proxy-based reactivity tracks dependencies more granularly.
Check for this by opening React DevTools and Vue DevTools in their respective apps. In React DevTools, enable “Highlight updates when components render.” You’ll likely see more components flashing than expected. In Vue DevTools, check the “Component render tracking” – you should see fewer unnecessary updates.
To fix React’s over-rendering, wrap components in React.memo() or use useMemo() and useCallback() hooks strategically. For Vue.js 3, make sure you’re not accidentally making everything reactive – use shallowRef() for large objects that don’t need deep reactivity.
Cause #2: Bundle Size Differences Skewing Initial Load Times
Your React app might be shipping 300KB while your Vue.js 3 app is only 150KB, or vice versa. This massively impacts initial performance metrics.
Run webpack-bundle-analyzer or vite-bundle-visualizer on both projects. Look for massive dependencies. React apps often accidentally include entire lodash libraries or moment.js. Vue apps might bundle unnecessary icon libraries or UI frameworks.
Fix this by implementing code splitting. In React:
“`javascript
const HeavyComponent = lazy(() => import(‘./HeavyComponent’));
“`
In Vue.js 3:
“`javascript
const HeavyComponent = defineAsyncComponent(() =>
import(‘./HeavyComponent.vue’)
);
“`
Cause #3: State Management Implementation Differences
Redux in your React app versus Pinia in your Vue.js 3 app creates different performance characteristics. Heavy Redux middleware or poorly structured Pinia stores tank performance differently.
Open the Redux DevTools or Pinia devtools panel. Watch the action/mutation frequency during typical user interactions. If you’re seeing hundreds of actions for simple tasks, you’ve found your bottleneck.
Batch your state updates. In Redux, use Redux Toolkit’s batch() function. In Pinia, group multiple state changes in a single action rather than calling multiple mutations.
When to Call a Technician
If you’ve tried all these steps and your performance comparison still seems wonky, it’s time for expert eyes. Contact a senior developer or performance consultant when:
- Your benchmarks show 10x differences between frameworks (something’s definitely wrong)
- You’re seeing memory leaks in production that don’t appear in development
- Your specific use case involves WebGL, WebAssembly, or other specialized APIs
- You need to optimize for specific devices or browsers your users actually use
Don’t feel bad about asking for help. Performance optimization is genuinely complex, and even experienced developers struggle with fair framework comparisons.
Copy-Paste Prompt for AI Help
“I’m comparing React and Vue.js 3 performance in 2025. My React app uses [your React version], Redux Toolkit, and Material-UI. My Vue.js 3 app uses [your Vue version], Pinia, and Vuetify. Both apps have similar features: [list your main features]. React shows [your React metrics] in Lighthouse, while Vue shows [your Vue metrics]. The apps have [number] components each, handling [type of data] data. What specific optimizations should I check to ensure fair performance comparison? My testing environment is [your OS and browser].”